Every great life coach has had a great education, and life coach books offer an effective, affordable way to stay on top of your game! Most top titles are available for purchase through Amazon or other book retailers, and many can even be borrowed from your local library.

Life coaching books make a wonderful addition to your training, because you can learn from a wide variety of experienced and inspiring professionals without ever leaving your home or office. Look for books that are tailored to your particular focus and style of life coaching. Look for books that have rave reviews. And finally, look for books that simply seem to jump out at you!

Whether you’re the skimming speed-reader type or the line-by-line highlighter type, you’re sure to glean some gold from the following five life coach books.

The Top 5 Life Coach Books

Becoming a Professional Life Coach, by Patrick Williams

Written by the founder of the Institute for Life Coach Training, this is a useful book for both new and experienced coaches alike. In fact, this is a useful book for just about anybody! It can help you improve relationships and stimulate personal growth. The book starts out with a brief history of coaching that is especially interesting, then moves through a comprehensive discussion of coaching fundamentals, ethics, listening skills, session preparation, and more.

Coaching Questions: A Coach’s Guide to Powerful Asking Skills, by Tony Stoltzfus

A great book for any coach who wants to improve their asking ability! With direct input from 12 other professional coaches, the author compiles a powerful array of tools and exercises for asking the right questions. He then provides over 1000 specific questions used by real coaches in real life coaching situations. This book also covers the top ten mistakes coaches make when asking questions.

The Business and Practice of Coaching: Finding Your Niche, Making Money, and Attracting Ideal Clients, by Lynn Grodzki and Wendy Allen

There aren’t a ton of books that discuss the actual business side of coaching, but this one tackles it head on. The book deals with several coaching fields, including life, career, skills, executive, and wellness coaching. It also talks about the legal aspects of running a business and how to create a profitable practice. A key read for building a strong and successful foundation in your coaching business!

Get Clients Now: A 28-Day Marketing Program For Professionals and Consultants, by C.J. Hayden

This book is not specifically about life coaching. Rather, it’s a precise and strategic marketing manual for anyone in the service industry. It provides six different marketing strategies, then details a 28-day program for each, replete with tasks and insights to help your business increase its bottom line. Life coaches looking for a boost should consider these tried-and-true techniques. I’ve known coaches who used this book as a quick 28 day jumpstart to their own practices when it was needed.

Co-Active Coaching: Changing Business, Transforming Lives

A great introduction for newer coaches, this book covers the basic premises and skill sets of coaching, including which questions to ask, and how to respond to the needs of different clients. The authors provide a series of live coaching examples that allow you to observe masterful coaching in action. Learn to create an effective conversation so that clients feel heard, and encouraged to explore solutions from a place of possibility.

Additional Recommended Reads

The happier and more fulfilled you are as a person, the more positive your impact will be on the people you serve! Books devoted to self-development and personal growth should be a regular part of your reading. Consume content from authors like Eckhart Tolle, Tony Robbins, Louise Hay, Robert Ringer, and Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) & Hypnosis are also great skills to add to your coaching abilities. Here are a few books to further your education in that area:

Using Your Brain For a Change, by Richard Bandler

Trance-Formations: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Structure of Hypnosis, by John Grinder

The Structure of Magic, Vol. 1: A Book About Language and Therapy, by Richard Bandler

There you have it, folks! These life coach books make for great reading whether you’re lounging by the pool, hanging at the park, waiting for an appointment, sitting in your favorite recliner, or before going to bed. They are packed with valuable information to supplement your life coach training and education, and they’ll sparkle on your shelves, ready to inspire again and again.

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